Esperanza Rising: Learning Not to Be Afraid to Start Over

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EDSITEment_NEH

Mexican woman farm laborer picking tomatoes in a California field, 1938. These were the very same circumstances and times that Esperanza lived and worked in as a child.

Subject English Language Arts — Reading Standards for Fiction

Grade Level Grades 6-8

Attributes

Available in Spanish

Standards Alignment

Common Core State Standards

License

About This Lesson

When Esperanza is a young girl learning with difficulty to crochet, her grandmother unravels all of her rows and advises, "Do not be afraid to start over." Although Esperanza does not realize it at the time, this advice will become her guiding principle as she learns to confront some of life's harsher realities. This lesson explores how Esperanza overcomes the challenges when she leaves her home in Mexico to live in the United States

Resources

External resources

Esperanza Rising: Learning Not to Be Afraid to Start Over

Website

Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.3

Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1

Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.2

Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.4

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.5

Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole.